Time to try talking

Diplomats don’t talk straight. If two leaders had fought like cat and dog at a summit, we’d be told that they had a “free and frank exchange with both leaders conveying their concerns to each other”.

- R. PRASANNAN

If they had a friendly meeting, we would be told that the two underlined (lately it has become ‘underscored’) the historic ties between the two countries and highlighted the progress made by both countries in deepening their special relationship…. As if presidents and prime ministers go to summits carrying marker pens and highlighters!

Jaswant Singh, as foreign minister, made obfuscation an art. When the 2001 Agra summit collapsed and a fuming Pervez Musharraf took a fast plane to Islamabad, Jaswant got the spokesperson to tell the scribes waiting past midnight: “We embarked on a voyage, but we didn’t reach the destination.” Period.

Funnier still was an earlier one. When Bill Clinton departed for Islamabad after concluding a much-feted visit to India, Jaswant got the foreign office to say, “The president departed in a westerly direction.” Having just fought the Kargil war, India and Pakistan were not on talking terms those days, and Jaswant didn’t want his diplomats to even mention the P-word.